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Banned
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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei
Actually Will Saddam had well documented ties to Palestinian terror groups and Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda who operate out of Kurdistan. As for the weapons issue, there have been weapons found, there have been precursors found, there has been evidence found atesting to programs being in place, just because we didn't a million gallons of Anthrax doesn't mean there weren't weapons found......
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Apologies in advance for such a loooonnnnng detailed post, but the quote above of your opinion, indicates that you aren't yet grokking the details..so..
Mojo, please consider that there is overwhelming support for my contention that <b>there is nearly a 100 percent probability that you are wrong</b> about Saddam's "well documented ties" to "Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda", and about the WMD and WMD programs assertions of Bush, Cheney, and yourself:
Quote:
http://archive.salon.com/politics/wa...awi/index.html
<b>"Taking out Zarqawi"</b>
When Gwen Ifill first asked Dick Cheney about the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041011051926/http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6422548">new CIA report</a> delivered to the White House last week that said
there was "no conclusive evidence" that the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- he dodged the question. But Ifill later returned to the topic, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_1005.html">Cheney had this to say:</a>
"But let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi. We know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Kermal (ph), where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use."
"We know he's still in Baghdad today. He is responsible for most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people. He's the one you will see on the evening news beheading hostages. He is, without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a terrorist.
He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he's in Baghdad now after the war."
"The fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's exactly what we'll do."
But what Cheney didn't mention is that the administration had <a href="http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?day=20040304">several chances to "take out" Zarqawi</a> in the run-up to the Iraq war, but chose not to.
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5329350.stm
Last Updated: Saturday, 9 September 2006, 00:04 GMT 01:04 UK
Iraq war justifications laid bare
By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Washington
The Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
In a report issued on Friday, it also found that was little or no evidence to support a raft f claims made by the US intelligence community concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The 400-page report was three years in the making, and is probably the definitive public account of the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.One starting point is this:
In a poll conducted this month by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, a sample of American adults was asked: "Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September terrorist attacks, or not?"
Forty-three percent of those polled answered yes, they believed Saddam was personally involved.
Even though it is well-established that Saddam Hussein was no ally of al-Qaeda, nor did he possess weapons of mass destruction, the original justifications for the invasion for Iraq inger on, often in ways that have strangely mutated on their journey through politics and media.
<h3>Cheney claims 'untrue'</h3>
In fact, the intelligence agencies had been extremely cautious in suggesting links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
It was Vice-President Dick Cheney who asserted most strongly in public that Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship.
<b>In a television interview in September 2003, he said there was "a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s... al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained... the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organisation."
It was "clearly official policy" on the part of Iraq, he said.</b>
Friday's report, issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provides another definitive statement <b>that that assertion is simply not true.</b>
It says that debriefings conducted since the invasion of Iraq "indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qaeda. No post-war information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with [Osama] Bin Laden.
<b>"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda... refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support."</b>
Administration confusion
The report supports the intelligence community's finding that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the man who was al-Qaeda's chief operative in Iraq between the invasion and his death in June this year - was indeed in Baghdad in 2002.
Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support.
Was this an Iraqi link to al-Qaeda?
<h3>No, says the report. Far from harbouring him, Saddam's regime was trying to find and capture him.</h3>
But the Bush administration has a way, still, of confusing this issue.
<b>As recently as 21 August this year, President Bush said that Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi".</b>
Quote:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=1
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 21, 2006
Press Conference by the President
White House Conference Center Briefing Room
....Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?
THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi.
<b>Highlighted in blue, near bottom of the page.....</b>
Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.
Now, look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. <b>It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. ......</b>
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The Senate report is scathing of the intelligence community's product concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"Post-war findings", it reads, "do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judgement that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."
Nor do "post-war findings" support the 2002 NIE's assertions that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons.
Political fallout
It remains to be seen if the Democrats can use the Senate report to damage the Republican Party in the run-up to Congressional elections in November by reminding the American public of the intelligence debacle that preceded the invasion of Iraq, and ascribing that failure to the leadership of the Bush administration.
It is far from clear they'll be able to do so.The president has been extremely active in the last week, selling his successes in the "war on
terror" in a series of speeches; demanding Congress give him greater powers to fight it; and announcing that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will be brought to trial.
The Democratic Party still seems unable to find a concerted critique of President Bush's handling of the "war on terrorism" and the conflict in Iraq, without themselves appearing defeatist.
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<h3>During his Aug. 21 ,2006 press conference, Bush falsely said that Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi, and Bush directly contradicted the Duelfer report's finding that Iraq had no plan or capacity to make WMD at the time of the March 2003 US invasion. Cheney, however....chose to tell identical lies on Sept. 10, the day after the BBC article, as well as numerous other reports, made clear that there were no "ties" found between Saddam and Zarqawi / Ansar Al-Islam !</h3>
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
September 10, 2006
Interview of the Vice President by Tim Russert, NBC News, Meet the Press
NBC Studios
Washington, D.C.
......Q The bottom line is the rationale given to the American people was that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction, and he could give those weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda,
and we could have another September 11th. And now we read that there is no evidence according
to Senate intelligence committee of that relationship. You said there's no involvement. The
President says there's no involvement --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, no involvement in what respect?
Q In September 11th, okay? And the CIA said leading up to the war that the possibility of
Saddam using weapons of mass destruction was "low." It appears that there was a deliberate
attempt made by the administration to link al Qaeda in Iraq in the minds of the American
people and use it as a rationale to go into Iraq.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, I guess -- I'm not sure what part you don't understand here. In 1990,
the State Department designated Iraq as a state sponsor of terror. Abu Nidal, famous
terrorist, had sanctuary in Baghdad for years. Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took
Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons
facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda. You had the fact that Saddam
Hussein, for example, provided payments to the families of suicide bombers of $25,000 on a
regular basis. This was a state sponsor of terror. He had a relationship with terror groups.
No question about it. Nobody denies that.
The evidence we also had at the time was that he had a relationship with al Qaeda. And that
was George Tenet's testimony, the Director of CIA, in front of the Senate intelligence
committee. We also had knowledge of the fact that he had produced and used weapons of mass
destruction. And we know, as well, that while he did not have any production under way at the
time, that he clearly retained the capability. And the expectation from the experts was as
soon as the sanctions were lifted, he'd be back in business again. Now, this was the place
where probably there was a greater prospect of a connection between terrorists on the one hand
and a terror-sponsoring state and weapons of mass destruction than anyplace else. .......
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Oct6.html
U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons
Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims
By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page A01
...Charles A. Duelfer, whom the Bush administration chose to complete the U.S. investigation
of Iraq's weapons programs, said Hussein's ability to produce nuclear weapons had
"progressively decayed" since 1991. Inspectors, he said, found no evidence of "concerted
efforts to restart the program."
The findings were similar on biological and chemical weapons. While Hussein had long dreamed
of developing an arsenal of biological agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research
stopped years before the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Duelfer said
Hussein hoped someday to resume a chemical weapons effort after U.N. sanctions ended, but had
no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.
Duelfer's report, delivered yesterday to two congressional committees, represents the
government's most definitive accounting of Hussein's weapons programs, the assumed strength of
which the Bush administration presented as a central reason for the war. While previous
reports have drawn similar conclusions, Duelfer's assessment went beyond them in depth, detail
and level of certainty.
"We were almost all wrong" on Iraq, Duelfer told a Senate panel yesterday.
President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before
the U.S. invasion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and
biological weapons and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such
weapons to use against the United States.
But after extensive interviews with Hussein and his key lieutenants, Duelfer concluded that
Hussein was not motivated by a desire to strike the United States with banned weapons, but
wanted them to enhance his image in the Middle East and to deter Iran, against which Iraq had
fought a devastating eight-year war. Hussein believed that "WMD helped save the regime
multiple times," the report said......
....Hussein, the report concluded, "aspired to develop a nuclear capability" and intended to
work on rebuilding chemical and biological weapons after persuading the United Nations to lift
sanctions. But the report also notes: "The former regime had no formal written strategy or
plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD
policy makers or planners separate from Saddam" tasked to take this up once sanctions
ended......
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<b>Mojo, the following is an excerpt from my Sept. 16, 2006 post, refuting your assertion about Saddam's "ties":</b>
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=47
As stated inside the following quote box, there is a link to an early Sept. 2006 post that contains 16 links to articles that support the "notion" that Saddam's regime had no ties with Cheney's "poison camp", and some evidence that the US knew about the "camp" and deliberately allowed it to continue to operate:
Quote:
..In a post earlier this week, here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...24&postcount=3
I offered at least 16 news reports, many with links, that contradicted VP Cheney's comments, last sunday, to Tim Russert, on national TV, with regard to Cheney's "answer", that invasion of Iraq was justified, because
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
.....Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda......
.......we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02......
.........<b>Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility</b> run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda......
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0030205-1.html
<img src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/images/iraq_header_final.gif">
For Immediate Release
February 5, 2003
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council
..... But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated in collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.
Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialities and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqaqi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.
Colin Powell slide 39
<img src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/powell-slides/images/39-350h.jpg">
Slide 39
POWELL: You see a picture of this camp. ....
..... Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of north east Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.
During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These Al Qaida affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.......
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/in...st/06ANSA.html
C. J. Chivers
Dateline: ERBIL, Iraq, Feb. 5
Threats and Responses: Northern Iraq
Section: A
Publication title: New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Feb 6, 2003. pg. A.22
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's assertion today that Islamic extremists were operating a poisons training camp and factory in northern Iraq appeared to surprise Kurdish officials, who greeted the claim with a mix of satisfaction and confusion.
The officials were pleased to hear an American effort to discredit their Islamist enemies, and to sense momentum toward war to unseat Saddam Hussein. But some also wondered if the intelligence Mr. Powell presented to the United Nations Security Council was imprecise.
As part of his presentation to the Security Council, Mr. Powell said a terrorist network run by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an operative of Al Qaeda, had ''helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.''
As he spoke, a monitor displayed a photograph with the caption: ''Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal.''
The network that Mr. Powell referred to appeared to be Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group controlling a small area of northern Iraq. Ansar has been accused of dispatching assassins and suicide bombers, of harboring Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan and of training several hundred local fighters.
The secular Kurdish government has been battling the group since 2001, and, since December, there have been indications that Mr. Zarqawi may have spent time in Ansar's territory last year.
But no Western officials had gone as far with claims of Ansar's danger as Mr. Powell did when he showed a photograph of the Khurmal factory. Mr. Powell also said that Baghdad has a senior official in the ''most senior levels'' of Ansar, a claim apparently intended to build a case that Baghdad is collaborating with Al Qaeda and, by extension, in a chemical factory.
Some here quickly seconded Mr. Powell's opinion. ''We have some information about this lab from agents and from prisoners,'' Kamal Fuad, the Parliament speaker, said.
But Mr. Powell's assertion also produced confusion tonight. One senior Kurdish official, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who is familiar with the intelligence on Ansar, said he had not heard of the laboratory Mr. Powell displayed.
''I don't know anything about this compound,'' he said.
Kurds also questioned whether Mr. Powell was mistaken, or had mislabeled the photograph. Khurmal, the village named on the photo, is controlled not by Ansar al-Islam but by Komala Islami Kurdistan, a more moderate Islamic group.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is allied with Washington and has been hosting an American intelligence team in northern Iraq for several months, maintains relations with Komala. It has been paying $200,000 to $300,000 in aid to the party each month, in an effort to lure Komala's leaders away from Ansar.
So Mr. Powell's photograph raised a question: Is the laboratory in Komala's area, meaning the Kurdish opposition might have inadvertently helped pay for it, or has the United States made a mistake?
''My sources say it is in Beyara,'' one Kurdish official said. ''Not in Khurmal.'' Ansar has a headquarters in Beyara, a village several miles from Khurmal.
Abu Bari Syan, an administrator for Komal Islami Kurdistan, the party that controls Khurmal, took an even stronger stand about Mr. Powell's claim. ''All of it is not true,'' he said.
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Quote:
http://www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefro...20030210a.html
Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2003. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, February 8, 2003
Islamic militants show press the camp Powell called poison site
By BORZOU DARAGAHI
Associated Press Writer
SARGAT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the
camp in northern Iraq a terrorist poison and explosives training center,
a deadly link in a "sinister nexus" binding Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
But journalists who visited the site depicted in Powell's satellite
photo found a half-built cinderblock compound filled with heavily armed
Kurdish men, video equipment and children - but no obvious sign of
chemical weapons manufacturing.
"You can search as you like," said Mohammad Hassan, a spokesman for
the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which controls the camp and
the surrounding village. "There are no chemical weapons here."
Ansar al-Islam, believed to have ties to al-Qaida, says the camp
serves as its administrative office for Sargat village, living quarters
and a propaganda video studio.....
........During his appearance before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday,
Powell displayed a satellite photo of this camp, which was identified as
"Terrorist Poison and Explosive Factory, Khurmal."
Powell said the camp was run by al-Qaida fugitives from Afghanistan
who were under the protection of Ansar al-Islam here in the autonomous
Kurdish area of Iraq in a region beyond Saddam Hussein's control.
But Powell maintained that a senior member of Ansar al-Islam was a
Saddam agent, implying a tenuous link between Baghdad and the terrorists
who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Western journalists were brought to this camp, with its distinctive
polygon-shaped fencing and nearby hills, by the Islamic Group of
Kurdistan, a moderate Muslim organization which maintains good relations
with Ansar al-Islam.
The compound, accessible by a long dirt road, is in a village of
several hundred people at the base of the massive Zagros mountains
separating Iraq from Iran.
Security appeared lax at the compound, whose jagged barbed-wire
perimeter matched a satellite photograph Powell displayed in his
Security Council presentation.
As evidence that the camp serves as a housing area, child-sized
plastic slippers could be seen in the doorways. A refrigerator had been
turned into a closet and filled with colorful women's clothes. The most
sophisticated equipment seen at the site was the video gear and
makeshift television studio Ansar says it uses to make its propaganda
films.
Ansar officials speculated that Powell was misled in his accusations
of a poison factory by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two
parties governing the autonomous northern Kurdish section of Iraq. Ansar
has been at war for two years with the PUK.
"Everything Powell said about us is untrue," said a man calling
himself Ayoub Hawleri. Other Kurds referred to him as Ayoub Afghani, who
manufactures explosives for suicide bombers.
"He was just repeating the PUK's lies," Ayoub said.
The Patriotic Union said Powell's allegations about the poison
laboratory were correct and it was in the Sargat compound in an area
accessible only to those who had come from Afghanistan and had "ties to
al-Qaida." A PUK spokeswoman said Saturday that Ansar could have moved
the facility before the journalists got there.
Though Ansar officials allowed the journalists access to the site,
they did not permit reporters to talk to anyone except two designated
Ansar officials.
Hawleri said he was shocked and surprised after watching Powell's
speech, which said Ansar harbored Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, a suspected
al-Qaida operative and alleged assassin of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley
in Jordan last year.
"The first time I even heard of al-Zarqawi was on television," he
said.
The name on the photo Powell showed to the world was Khurmal, a
nearby town that is under the control of Islamic Group of Kurdistan.
Islamic Group denies there is such a camp at Khurmal and believes
Powell's satellite photo evidence misidentified the site's location.
An official at the equivalent of the local social security office
said the Sargat compound is in the district of Biyare, near the town of
Biyare where Ansar has its headquarters.
Before taking journalists to Sargat, Islamic Group took them to
Khurmal to show them the camp was not there.
Group official Fazel Qaradari said he welcomed the large contingent
of Western media to "see for themselves" that there is no such factory
in Khurmal.....
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Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200306040...alsealarm.html
False Alarm?
Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information
By Brian Ross and Jill Rackmill
ABCNEWS.com
Feb. 13 [2003]— A key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to two senior law enforcement officials in Washington and New York.
.......It was only after the threat level was elevated to orange — meaning high — last week, that the informant was subjected to a polygraph test by the FBI, officials told ABCNEWS.
"This person did not pass," said Cannistraro.
According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was "not familiar with the scenario," but did not think it was accurate.
Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted. .........
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Last edited by host; 01-17-2007 at 04:50 AM..
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